Chavez celebrated a Venezuelan holiday promoting children's welfare by telling a group of adolescents to become socialists with the monk-like mission to serve the poor that was espoused by Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

"We must study socialism," said Chavez, telling the children they should read Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - authors of the "Communist Manifesto" - along with other socialist thinkers.

Chavez was forced to backtrack on a school textbook overhaul in April after teachers and parents accused him of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas. His government is drafting a new curriculum to be implemented in schools next year.

Activists such as Carvajal plan to challenge the modified project in the courts and in the streets with protests if Chavez attempts to add revolutionary ideology to new textbooks.